Big Delve Changes Coming in Undermined Patch 11.1

Delve into this article to learn about the many changes and updates coming to the delve system in patch 11.1 - Branntastic!

2 New Delves & 1 New Challenge Delve

• Side street sluice

  • Location: The Vatworks, Undermine - /way 35, 53

  • Possible stories; All that Glitters, Mr. DELVER, Teleporter Tantrums

  • Sturdy Chests

    • In completion reward room 75, 73

    • On platform above goo, lowest level - 60, 64

    • On ledge around mid-tier - 76, 39

    • Platform above goo, need to drop down or swim through, after entering main section - 32, 72

• Excavation Site 9

  • Location: The Writhing Fields, Ringing Deeps - /way

  • Possible Stories: Black Blood Profits, Lost Excavators, Rowdy Rifts

  • Sturdy Chest Locations:

    • TBD

• Challenge Delve

  • Underpin's Demolition Competition

    • Location: Demolition Dome, Undermine - /way 50, 10

    • Difficulty Tier and Unlock Requirement

      • ? - Complete a tier 7 Delve in Season 2 with lives remaining

      • ?? - Complete a tier 10 Delve in Season 2 with lives remaining

    • Story: ... get Brann's hat back?!

Brann has a Tank Spec

Tired of getting smashed about in delves, well Brann has felt your pain too, so much so he's grabbed a shield and decided he will tank for you, how admirable! Brann's level will stay the same as it was before the patch goes live, so you can continue where you left off. If you have yet to get Brann to level 60, he will get a nice buff to his XP to catch him up.

So how is his tank spec? Well.. honestly, he's great at holding aggro, I played with him as blood DK and he kept aggro from me just fine, although, he is susceptible to being knocked out. Paired with a healer, he will do great, healers are going to have a much smoother time in solo delves now, as his damage is pretty good too!

Bountiful Delve Rotation & Keys

Your current supply of Restored Coffer Keys will not carry over into season two, so you'll have to start earning them again from the usual sources. You will have to unlock the tiers of delves again too, we will all start having up to level 4 unlocked, and will need to complete a delve on each tier to unlock the tier above it.

New Curios, Nemesis & Affixes

Zekvir was our Delve Nemesis for Season one, who we dealt with quite sufficiently! This time around, we have Underpin.. a crazy goblin who has ambushed Brann, destroyed all of his curious... and taken his hat! This just got personal.

Curios

Underpin's ambush has ruined all the curios we collected with Brann in season 1, so we have a chunk of new ones to collect, opening up all new options when it comes to tackling season 2 delves. Use the slider below to preview some!

In season 2, looting treasures in delves can lead to us finding shards of some of the popular curios from season 1, such as the Amorphous Relic or Porcelain Arrowhead idol, but they will work slightly differently. Rare elite mobs in delves also granted us powers, however some of these felt a bit lackluster and ended up being ignored or deemed too risky to go for in higher tier delves, but this is changing too.

When we loot these powers in delves from now on, they will buff Brann and us for the duration of that delve run, example being, the silencing potion, which you can make use of for the interrupt, but also means if Brann is currently set to tank or DPS, he will have a heal too. Basically function to give us more variety and flexibility, in how we can tackle the current delves challenges.

Affixes

No longer will Zekvir pop up and attempt to wreck our delve run. The focus of this seasons delve affix will be Underpin's minions sometimes replacing baseline Delve packs, who should be a little bit easier to take down than Zekvir's minions were. The benefit of this, is a more steady difficulty increase and not having runs where you feel its game over, if these mobs were to spawn in a 'bad spot'.

Delve Rewards

Gear from tier 8 Bountiful delves was a great way to gear up early in the season, however players quickly found they had no real reason to seek out this gear once they had got past a certain item level. There was no real reason to do tier 9 delves and higher, other than achievement points and bragging rights. However, this is also changing.

Delves will be a reasonable source of high end Crests now, with tier 9, 10 and 11 delves rewarding more runed crests, as well as tier 11 bountiful delves, rewarding Gilded Crests, 3 times per week. You won't need Restored Coffer keys to loot these crests either, even despite it being a bountiful delve, they will simply be in a separate chest in the loot room.

These crest changes are decent, however where gear is concerned, tier 8 delves will still give you the maximum item level delve reward in the weekly vault. So unless you want those gilded crests, there is still not much reason to do a tier 11 bountiful delve.

Delve Mechanics

Sporebits... if you've never been blasted across the map by a Sporebit in Fungal Folly, have you even lived? Some mechanics such as these, are being updated in the delves we've known since the launch of The War Within. This is to spice up the current way we tackle these delves and increase variance, as lets face it, you probably know the delves like the back of your hand at this point.

The existing Delves will also have new variants in story, to freshen them up even further!

Delve Maps

Bad luck protection is being introduced to the drop rates of Delve Maps. If you are someone who has seen only one or two maps, or perhaps even zero maps from delves, you are not alone! The drop rate of these maps has been abysmal, so Blizzard are attempting to change this by buffing the chance to loot a delve map slightly, for every delve you do in which a map does not drop. There is a cap to go along with this however, players will only be able to loot one map per week.

These are all the changes for now, remember this information comes from the Public Test Realm, so is subject to change.

What do you think of the changes, let us know in a comment!